Assess Me After One Year - GEJ

http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/news/17334-president-assess-me-after-one-year.html

President: Assess Me After One Year - For The Sake Of Nigerians We Expect An A+

By Vincent Ikuomola 1 hour ago

President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday asked those in a hurry to assess his administration to wait till next year.
He described three months as too short a period to assess an administration which only took off with the recent constitution of the cabinet.

He spoke during a visit of the Yoruba Council of Elders led by its President Gen Adeyinka Adebayo to the State House yesterday. The President said the issue of poor roads will be taken care of.
The elders had raised concern about the bad roads, within the region and called on the Federal Government to do something about it.

“We must take our priority projects, see how we can fund them and that is through alternative source of funding. We have set up an economic team and economic management team,” he said.
The president who also spoke on corruption said the administration is serious in the fight against corruption, saying “some corrupt practices we must stop it. There must be drastic changes.”

Stressing his determination to rid the country of corruption, the president who cited the crisis in Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) said the essence of the NDDC fact- finding committee was to be able to have first hand knowledge of what was happening there so as to punish the guilty while rewarding the hardworking ones.

“I remember what happened in the last dispensation  when my Minister of Works who is from Benin visited the Oba,who refused him entry because  of the Benin –Ore Raod and the Oba said no, the Minister of Works you cannot enter into my compound. Somebody from the South East asked are we not part of Nigeria? , All our roads are bad. Every year we budget significant sums of money, there is no year we don’t budget significant sums of money for road, yet, there seem to be no road anyway, so where is that money going? I know that probably the money, it is not that some people are embezzling the money per se, but we try to spread the little money into too many projects and at  the end of the day, we are not getting anything done. We spread the money and we don’t achieve what we want and people don’t see. Where we are supposed to use N3billion we put N500 million and the contractor just uses it to buy diesel and plays around. Nobody can say yes, the Federal Government has this kilometres of road at least completed at least from this end to this end, that is one of the places we are looking at .

“For the road infrastructure we are also looking at alternative means of funding and we have set up a committee.

We must take our priority projects, see how we can fund them and that is through alternative source of funding. We have set up and economic team and economic management team. I don’t want to tell them so that they will say  this is what the president wants and what the president said.

“For the road infrastructure we are also looking at alternative means of funding and we have set up a committee.”

Earlier, the Yoruba Council of Elders had decried what it termed apparent disregard for the principle of Federal Character and its negative effect on the Southwest the elders also complained about the dilapidated state of the Lagos Ibadan express way.